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Monday, November 19, 2012

Step by Step: Double Flower Topper

Well, well, it's been a busy few days for me so I haven't had a chance to update you guys on everything I've been up to. I do have a few wedding-related projects in the works that I can share with you in 23 days (!) but not until then (sorry, but I can't be giving everything away before the big day or there'll be no surprises left). I do, however, have this lovely little tutorial for you to brighten up what is a dark and dismal Monday here in Cork.

Step 1.
Get your peach flower paste. You can buy it pre-made, or you can colour it yourself by buying white/ivory/cream florist paste and dying it the colour you want. I used peach gel mixed with cream florist paste to make these flowers so I'll be referring to it as peach in the tutorial but any colour would work (I actually think red would look amazing on top of a Christmas cake - Poinsettia style!). Anyway, get your peach paste and split it into 3 even-sized pieces. Pop two of these pieces into a relatively air-tight container (I wrapped mine in tinfoil) whilst you work with the first piece. Florist paste dries fast so you don't want to have them set on you before you get to use them.

Step 2.
Split your first ball of paste and split it in two. Leave half aside (with the other 2 pieces) and roll out the other half as thinly as you can on your non-stick board (which you can make by wrapping a normal board in baking parchment or clingwrap). Using your large blossom cutter, cut out a flower shape. Remove the excess paste

Step 3.
Using your ball tool roll over and around the petals until they start to vein and ruffle like "real" flowers. This is probably easier on a soft(ish) surface like a foam pad if you have one but you can still make it look pretty good if you don't (I didn't, and I'm pretty pleased with the results)

Step 4.
Sit the large flower onto a gently domed flower cup and roll out your other half of that piece of paste. This time use your medium blossom cutter and cut out a flower shape. Repeat step 3 to ruffle and vein your flower.

Step 5.
Brush some edible glue in the centre of the large blossom and stick the medium blossom on top of it, slightly off-setting the petals to the ones below.

Step 6.
Transfer the double flower into a deeper/more domed flower cup and using your ball tool press down lightly so that the petals curve up. Shape the flower as you want it to sit once it's dry and then leave to set for at least 8 hours.

Step 7.
Repeat these steps for the other two flowers (or as many times as you want flowers, hey, go crazy and make a 100!). You don't have to go for normal cupping shapes either. For example, I wanted one of my flowers to have a more upright side to the petals due to the way I wanted to arrange them on the cake, so instead of a normal flower cup I used Horace. Say hello Horace! (Horace is an egg-cup which are great for really trumpet-shaped flowers)

Hello!

Step 8.
Once the flowers have set you're going to add the decorative touches to them. Use edible glue to stick a dragée in the centre, and then 6 more dragées around it in a circle.

Tada! You've now made your very own double-flowers to decorate with! You could even make smaller ones using smaller blossom cutters if you wanted to top cupcakes rather than a full cake. You could also use an edible gold dust and a fine paintbrush to edge the flowers and highlight the veining detail more. Colours/decorate touches etc are all up to you, your only limit is your imagination!

To attach these to a cake, especially as I have done here by going against gravity, I'd recommend you use stiff peak royal icing or a good bit of edible glue. Attach the flower to the cake and then use something to balance it (hello again Horace my good pal) overnight until you're positive it is firmly held on.

I didn't photograph the step-by-step of the quilting effect I did on the sides of the cake but if you guy would like to know more about it then let me know and I'll knock together a tutorial for that too (any excuse to make more cake LOL).